Pujols Is New Home Run King

Posted by Mark Barnes May 24, 2006

Home run records are Under Review

While the media fawns over Barry Bonds and his pursuit of Hank Aaron's all-time home run mark, Major League Baseball has a new star masher, named Albert Pujols. In considering the career numbers of another great slugger, Jim Thome , I recently took a look at Pujols career numbers.

A few amazing things come to mind, when looking at Pujols statistics. In just five full seasons, the star slugger from the Dominican Republic has averaged a little over 40 home runs. In less than two months of the 2006 season, Pujols belted 23 bombs, putting him on pace for a new single-season record.

At first, I thought 200 homers in five seasons was a ridiculous number that would easily make Pujols the next home run king.

That is, until I thought of Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755. Some quick math tells me that even if he can maintain his punishing pace of 40-plus homers per season, Pujols will need more than 19 full seasons to pass Aaron. He'll need 15 stellar seasons to reach just 600.

This puts major home run plateaus into an interesting perspective. Just sticking around the major leagues for 15 years is a remarkable accomplishment. Averaging 40 homers for this amount of time is unbelievable.

I don't know if Pujols can do it. In fact, I would say the odds are heavily against it. Since the likes of Aaron, Ruth and Mays, no player has been able to match this production without the help of performance-enhancing drugs.

With his tremendous swing and great demeanor, though, Pujols seems like an obvious candidate. Unlike Barry Bonds, Pujols is certainly a guy one can root for.

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